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Motorola Sues Apple

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the sue-sue-sudio dept.

rexjoec writes "Just a week after Motorola Inc. (MOT) itself became the target of legal action by Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), it sued Apple Inc. (AAPL) for the alleged infringement of 18 of its patents. Motorola subsidiary, Motorola Mobility Inc. also filed patent suits against Apple in federal court in Illinois and Florida."

7 of 176 comments (clear)

  1. Just great!! by udoschuermann · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is great! If this madness continues, companies will spend 90% of their revenue filing or defending dozens of lawsuits, get nothing done anymore, and will clamor at the doors of congress to save them from the patent madness they once thought to be such a great idea.

    Or maybe we're all doomed.

    --
    --Udo.
    1. Re:Just great!! by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In the end we'll all pay more for phones because these companies can't learn to get along. Who knows, they may each have patents for the same things issued by the infallible USPTO.

  2. Laughable by Moby+Cock · · Score: 4, Insightful

    These patents are absurd. We've debated the frivolousness of many patents here for a while, but a patent for "Receiver having concealed external antenna" is just laughable. It makes me wonder if there is a patent for have an non-concealed antenna.

    1. Re:Laughable by gad_zuki! · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Except prior art of on internal antenna is at least 40 years. Its not an innovation. Its an EXISTING AND KNOWN feature but crammed in legalese and put in conditions like "cell based receivers" so that the patent passes without adding any innovation to the world. Its your typical "narrow enough to pass but broad enough to do damage" patent that these companies specialize in for the sake of litigious action against competitors.

      The USPO's take on this is that the courts will work it out. Thanks guys for letting any patent go through and letting me, the end user of these phones, pay extra for all the laywering.

  3. Re:Cellphone Market Turning Ugly For Apple by RingBus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Apple still has an army of fans in the media who will proclaim every new product as 'innovative' and 'amazing' regardless of the actually quality which will help less the blow of Android dominance. However there is now an air of acceptance from Apple fans that the iPhone is on its way to a Mac like marketshare and quite a bit of revisionist history of "Apple never wanted to dominate the cellphone market" rationalizing going on.

  4. Re:Armageddon! by Carewolf · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No, it seems destruction is not assured, so it is not MAD, unfortunately it appears to be MAX - Mutually Assued Crosslicensing :(

  5. Re:Cellphone Market Turning Ugly For Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There's also an army of anti-Apple people who will up-mod anything tearing Apple apart. It's like a car with most of its weight at the front and back ends -- most of the time it balances out, but it does tend to go into a ditch a fair amount.